New year, new career?, new job? promotion?

2008 has begun, happy new year to everyone, I hope that you had a good rest and are now ready for a happy and prosperous 2008.This is a good time to start thinking about your career and planning what you want to achieve during the year.

We all start the year with a positive note and set ourselves various goals, the challenge is to keep to the goals, keep positive and achieve our personal objectives.

So why not make 2008 the year to review your career. Perhaps you have been hoping for a promotion which has not yet come your way?, maybe you want a career change? or just want to evaluate your key skills and identify and plan where you want your career to take you?

Take some time out of your busy schedule and make a resolution to give yourself some personal time to self-reflect on where you want your career and life to take you. Update your CV if you haven't done so for a while. It is important to keep your CV up to date and include recent achievements. Keep your networks up to date - contact people that you haven't spoken to for a while, you never know when you might need their support or professional advice. Write an action plan and think about how you can overcome any barriers that may be in the way to reaching your desired objectives. If you find it hard to self-assess yourself and build your career action plan, then think about employing a career coach to help you. It is often easier to work with someone to help achieve your goals, than struggling on ones own.

Good luck for 2008.

ABNW have an exciting year ahead - we are embarking on a new career coaching programme for students from aged 16 upwards and will be working with a wide variety of people empowering them to achieve their goals and find job satisfaction. We will be working with companies in the UK and internationally providing expert support to companies talent management programmes, career development programmes and assisting those employees being made redundant, providing them with support, coaching and professional advice to move forward within their careers.

We are also launching our NLP training programmes and have recently recruited an expert NLP trainer and coach to support our NLP and communication training programmes.

ABNW will be attending the HR Directors Forum in Birmingham on the 29th and 30th January where we will be launching some of our new programmes, including the 'Intelligent Career' approach. For those attending the event, we look forward to meeting you there.